I'm so sorry for any confusion I caused. It was not my intention. I genuinely like the game and what it's going for, and wanted to be helpful.
Yes, you're correct - I should have been more specific and clearer in my feedback. Let me try again:
1. It worked really well together and didn't feel disjointed at all! You and your writer did a good job.
2a. Calling it a "portal" was a total brainfart on my part, sorry.
The word I was looking for was genuinely something else, something like "downward slope", I think. I was trying to explain where the "leap of faith" section I was talking about could be found, and I called the big slope that leads downwards to where the boss room is (when the Witch says "but if so many witches died, then...") a portal. I guess I must still be somewhat sleep deprived from the jam 🙈
2b. In any game that has platforming, a literal (not logical) leap of faith is when I can't tell where to go next and have to jump ("leap") off of a platform to find out. The faith part refers to "I think this is the right direction".
This first screenshot shows me standing on a plattform: link
And this next screenshot shows me on the one I'm supposed to land on: link
Even though the second platform isn't that much further down than the first one, it's just ever so slightly off screen. Sometimes I can see the top parts of the heads from enemies, which gives me an idea that there's a platform there, but then seeing the enemies also gives me incentive to look for another way.
A lot of older platforming games (like the Lion King) had something like this but it's not as common in modern games anymore (it's sometimes used for getting from the end of one level to the beginning of the next).
If it's in the middle of the level like that, it is usually something that a designer might not notice (after all, they know where to go) but a playtester might - however, it's not a design mistake or anything, it just comes down to personal preference for players.
The reason I even brought it up and asked whether it was intentional or not, was that I thought something like this aligns really well with the Fool Tarot card. Because the meaning of going headfirst into a new beginning, which is a figurative leap of faith, and also because most of the artwork for that card shows the Fool literally about to walk off a cliff. If there had been a hint that such a section was about to come up by the character picking up the Fool Tarot card immediately before, it would have been almost like a mini-puzzle to tie into the narrative.
3. I'd love to help but I'm struggling to find out what exactly causes the bug myself. I don't have any experience working with Godot. think it's a combination of dashing and jumping at the same time, and then colliding with something? I did get the bug a lot, usually when I was trying to perform maneuvers and especially during the boss fight. Maybe my play style is what caused me to get that bug a lot more than the other players :/
I just played it again for about an hour and here's some screenshots of every time I got stuck, arranged in an imgur album: link
4. Maybe it was just a skill issue on my part. I did notice the blinking, but I was still not able to hit him enough times to kill him, I think. I'm sorry you had to work on the game while recovering from the vaccine and I hope you feel better now. I think for a game jam, especially when there's only 10 days, it's way more important to have a good proof of concept / prototype of what you're going for, than to have a bug-free experience. I still brought up the bug because I wanted to be honest about what kept me from finishing the game. Your health is more important than any of that, though, so please take care.
5. Good news!!!
As I was trying a couple more times, I was finally able to beat the boss and get to the end! So don't worry, you don't have to do that!
I love the little message at the end. It was a really good ending :D